Chayne Garma

4-25-2017
EDSE 492
Final Professional Dispositions Narrative

How do I as a teacher affect students in my classroom? This is a

question we as student teachers have been reflecting on this past

semester and will continue to reflect, question and eventually answer

well into our teaching careers. As Dr. Stephanie Kami tells us

throughout the semester of our student teaching, "We make a hundred

or more decisions every day and each decision we make affects our

students." It is through those decisions on whether the students will be

willing to learn, are going to put their unique skills to use or to even

being turned off to the lesson and not willing to participate. Through

this process of decisions, I as a teacher must be careful and reflective

of each decision I make and this will be a lifelong process. Being a

lifelong learner, my studying and gaining knowledge does not end

when I turn the tassel at graduation. It continues every day after that

well into the end of my teaching career.

Each school year, teachers get new students and with those new

students come new young people with their experiences of their life,

new unique skills, new and different ways of learning, and new

attitudes toward their teacher and school. With this refresh of students,

a teacher must adapt and learn how to bring out the potential of their

students. We as teachers have a duty to impart knowledge onto the

students either by direct instruction or independent learning or a

combination of both. New strategies must be learned to reach those

new students, new assignments, projects or different ways to

accommodate how the student learns. Instead of a paper, a student

wants to do a PowerPoint, instead of a PowerPoint a student wants to

do a video. It is the duty of the teacher to be willing to accommodate

those choices to help the student. During the semester, there was a

project that needed to be done as a summative of the unit. I had

assigned a project that accumulated that knowledge of the unit and for

the students to put it on a PowerPoint. Some students did not have

access to a computer and I had worked with those students to see

what they could do to the same project but in a different way. The

accommodation was to create a poster board and they had gotten high

marks for the poster board because of the information was the same

they would put on the PowerPoint. As a lifelong learner, we must be

willing to change our lessons and be sensitive to the needs of our

students and for them to be in an environment for them to succeed.

Not only through instruction but our demeanor as people, the

way we act and approach students are also affecting how students are.

A saying goes, "students will reflect on how the teacher is feeling

during the day." We as teachers come into the classroom with a

professional attitude. To always come prepared and ready to teach no

matter what the day throws at you. As Dr. Cathy Ikeda says, "when you

teacher as an introvert, you are putting on a show the whole day." We

need to continually reflect on how we come into the classroom.

Through our attitudes to how we dress does affect how the students

will be in our classroom. Throughout the semester, I have dressed

professionally to show to the students that I am the teacher and to

separate the student from the teacher. Due to my "baby-faced" look, I

can be mistaken easily for a student if dressed unprofessionally. That

will affect the student by them not taking me seriously or being too

casual with me in order for them to focus and learn.

We also need to have a good teacher/student relationship with the

student to form a good rapport. That idea of rapport allows us to reach

students and for them to care about why they are coming to school

and be willing to learn what the teacher is willing to teach. If the

rapport is bad wit the students, giving the students' motivation to learn

decreases significantly. I have seen this in the beginning when I did not

have the rapport with the students, for them to learn willingly and to

be motivated was difficult to achieve. When I started to form

relationships and rapport with the students teaching became easier

and students became more willing to come to class with an attitude to

learn.

As a teacher, I must always continue to reflect about my

decisions in and out of the classroom. How do I grade, how do I assign

work, how to I instruct. What I do outside of the classroom how my

attitude is, how I dress. All of these things that I do or will do as a

teacher affects students learning and growth. Continuing to reflect and

learn is a lifelong process and must always be looked at each day I am

in the classroom. I as a teacher have a profound impact on students

and it is up to me as a teacher that I allow these kids to turn their

experience that they have so far in the lives and use those experiences

and turn them into unique skills to have to use throughout their lives.